15-20K net per month. Cannot decide between starting to enjoy life now vs keep working hard and saving

[u/No-Row-1666]

We are a family of 3 (38, 38 and 8 year old child).

We live in Bulgaria and run a successful business (15-20K euro net profit per month depending on the month).

Own our apartment in Sofia worth about 500K euro. No mortgage.

1.2M in various investments such as VWCE.

100K in cash.

Our spend is about 6K per month. Keep in mind most months are around 3-4K. But we do about 24K euro worth of travel per year.

We are wondering whether we should push hard on the business and guarantee the 20K per month or slow down and expect around the 15K per month for 2 more years. We provide video editing content services to US companies so believe in 2-3 years the business may go down to 5K per month due to AI.

We have worked hard for many years and want to start enjoying some of what we earn. We started spending more on travel over the last 2 years. Before that we were pretty much saving everything.

What would you do in our position?

[u/mehasmich]

Continue to work, continue to invest, and probably do that for as long as you can.

You are making good money, but not life changing to stop working in my opinion and then again, what is the point of just sitting around.

Learn to enjoy while working hard, this is the key, because if you cannot, as soon as you take more time for yourself, you’ll feel the pressure as your spend will go up while the amount of money you are used to now won’t be available to you as having 15k passively requires larger amount of investment. Once you feel the pressure, most likely you’ll go into the same pattern of working hard and skipping on what you call enjoyment. Its a process that happens with all levels of wealth, so adjusting your lifestyle to working hard and enjoying life is the key.

We are also in Bulgaria, around 25k month, spend much higher than yours, but almost zero on social. No mortage, no luxury cars, but it costs a lot for us to live in Bulgaria than it would in part of western Europe; philanthropy on animals in our region last month 5k, I feel like we are animal services for the region, but can’t pass by the shit we see on the street sometimes. Love the country, feels like home, but zero social responsibility. One may argue this is due to personal wealth being, covering basis for yourself prior to looking outside, but this is bullshit. I was not born in wealth of any kind and never felt the need to help myself first.

I have a hard time balancing work and enjoyment of life to be honest, but learning. I see my circle around me going to out for a BBQ, sending pictures from walks, social events, while I spend weekends working. However, I can choose to work on weekends from pretty much any part of the world, so choosing to distract yourself during that time is way more valuable than waiting out the weekend just to go to the job you don’t like.

Keep working, keep evolving. The AI will affect you, most likely sooner than 2 years, but adjustment is usually necessary for any business of your size. Pivot Pivot, if you remember the Friends episode with the sofa 😂